January 11, 2013

A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.

Charles Barkley was on Inside the NBA last night talking about the possible relocation of the Sacramento Kings to Seattle.

He harshly criticized owners in all pro sports for holding cities hostage in their various bids to build new stadiums, getting the taxpayer to foot the bill, especially in these difficult economic times.

insomnyuk:Charles Barkley was on Inside the NBA last night talking about the possible relocation of the Sacramento Kings to Seattle.

He harshly criticized owners in all pro sports for holding cities hostage in their various bids to build new stadiums, getting the taxpayer to foot the bill, especially in these difficult economic times.

This is something I've never heard on ESPN, fwiw.

Hallelujah! I'm so happy to hear someone finally say this who's inside the sport. And yes, an odd thing to hear on ESPN as well. I'd love nothing so much as to see David Stern and his ilk squirm when cash strapped states, AGs, and the US Congress start turning the screws on this unchecked game of extortion.

The football team I used to play for had a guy who'd show up one week in three who was the product of someone or other's youth system and had been offered a contract to loiter in Crewe Alexandra's reserve system. He decided this sounded like a job, rather than fun, so he started his own business and played semi-pro instead.

Whenever he decided he needed a bit of fitness or just another run out he'd come play for us. We were a mid-table second division side in a regional league with seven divisions, (so not entirely terrible), but he was other-worldly.

He'd put in performances most often seen in Roy of the Rovers magazines, including frequent hattricks, with one memorable effort where he came on as a sub on the hour, scored three goals in 17 minutes then walked off the pitch, took off his shirt, got in his car and drove home.

He was excellent at being where people weren't and then when people tried to be where he was, he went somewhere else like he was teleported. We loved having him on the team, but he disabused pretty much all of us of the "we could do better" idea.

Same here. I managed, during my late teens and early twenties, to play semi-professionally (basically it paid my student fees). The guys who were destined for the national league and the national age teams were always a class above.

Later on, in the Over 35s, we often ended up playing against some famous(alright, famous in Australia) names. Of course they never took it very seriously, but you could see what Barney Ronay mentions in terms of having some Matrix like vision playing in their heads, and seeing space behind the space. One match I particularly remember, I was marking a former Yugoslav international striker, who I thought I had covered, with his back to goal, just outside the box. Good defending, I thought, as I pressured him from behind. Without seeming to look, he flicked the ball up, and did an overhead scissors kick into the top corner of our net.

Years ago I played in a mildly competitive rec league in Maryland with a bunch of would-be smoothies who played soccer in college and thought they were hot stuff. Our team had a ringer, a sixty-some year old hydrology professor who had been on the Iranian national team before the revolution. He wasn't fast or strong or all that fit but he made guys half his age look like chumps. He didn't want to play whole games for us because it wasn't fair to the other teams. He'd score four or five goals in ten minutes, without looking like he was trying all that hard. Sometimes the other team would get frustrated and try to foul him out of the game, and he'd remain remarkably calm, asking them to please not try to hurt him, would they tackle their father like that?

On weekends the Persian community of central Maryland would all meet on a local high-school playing field for a big social pickup game. That was where he was at his best, with his friends' grandchildren, who were pretty much the only people who could take the ball away from them. No matter how good you are, fifteen six- to ten-year olds crowding around you at once will dispossess you, like urchins in a Roman market. Nothing delighted him more.

Sometimes he'd hang out with us after the game and people would say, "Man, you must have been a star in your youth." He'd say, "Are you kidding? I was only called up a few times, almost everybody else on the team was better than me. And to be honest, we were Iran, not some European country. These guys you watch on TV would make the younger me look like a fool."